Silicon Valley Frankenmeat to Save the World from Global Warming

If Silicon Valley green tech giants have their way, real meat will become an unaffordable carbon taxed luxury item eaten by the very rich. The rest of us will have to eat “meatless meat” – meat flavoured mashed vegetables and lab grown tissue cultures.

In August one of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups closed a $17 million round of funding. The Series A had attracted some of the biggest names in tech. “I got closed out because of Richard Branson and Bill Gates,” bemoaned Jody Rasch, the managing trustee of an angel fund that wasn’t able to buy in. Venture capital firm DFJ—which has backed the likes of Tesla and SpaceX—led the round, with one of its then-partners calling the nascent company’s work an “enormous technological shift.”

The cutting-edge product the startup was trying to develop? Meat—the food whose more than $200 billion in U.S. sales has come to be the defining element of the Western diet. But what made this company’s work so revolutionary was not what it was trying to make so much as how it was attempting to do it. Memphis Meats, the brainchild that had the startup-investor class salivating, was aiming to remove animals from the process of meat production altogether.

It’s the type of world-saving vision that has oft captured the imagination of Silicon Valley—the kind of entrenched problem that technologists believe only technology can solve: feeding a fast-growing, protein-hungry global population in a way that doesn’t blow up the planet. Conjuring up meat without livestock—whose emissions are responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gases—is core to that effort. Just listen to how the progenitor of Googleyness itself describes the prospect of animal-free meat: “It has the capability to transform how we view our world,” Google cofounder Sergey Brin has said. “I like to look at technology opportunities where the technology seems like it’s on the cusp of viability, and if it succeeds there, it can be really transformative.”

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As a sign of the market’s potential, alternative meat producers point to the explosive growth plant-based milk has made in the dairy aisle, now capturing almost 10% of U.S. retail sales by volume. “I want to be able to say you don’t have to make a choice in what you’re eating,” Memphis CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti says, “but you can make a choice on the process of how it goes to the table.”

Hoping to make that choice easier, the new agripreneurs are tackling semantics first—redefining what “meat” means. Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown says he’d like to get people to think about meat “in terms of its composition” rather than its origin. The reframing isn’t just an epistemological one, but also a scientific one, reducing meat to its molecules.

That won’t be an easy sell, and the movement has its detractors—some of whom seem miffed by the notion that anyone would try to mess with Mother Nature. “They want to make up their own dictionary version of what meat is, and these are people who do not eat meat,” says Suzanne Strassburger, whose family has been in the meat business for more than 150 years. “The real question is, are they feeding people or are they feeding egos.”

There will be a market for this product. While I understand some people drink soy milk because of allergies or cost, many of those 10% of people who drink Soy milk do so for idealogical reasons – they also try to avoid other cattle products, buying veggie burgers and suchlike, and will likely be ready in many cases to buy lab grown cultured meat (guaranteed cruelty free).

For people who genuinely can’t afford meat at current prices, a cheap substitute which helped them and their children get the protein they require wouldn’t be a bad thing – though cutting red tape to help reduce the cost of real meat would likely achieve the same goal.

I doubt most of the remaining 90% of us would willingly embrace highly processed artificial meat tasting substitutes when we can buy the real thing.

Discouraging ordinary people from buying real meat will have to be a business goal of these high tech entrepreneurs. No doubt they would justify such efforts in terms of saving the planet from climate change.

It is easy to see how discouraging real meat consumption could happen – advertisements flooding the airwaves with messages emphasising the “cruelty” of cattle farming, adding Vegan messages to elementary school lessons, imposing carbon taxes and animal welfare regulations to make cattle farming impossibly expensive, lots of donated cash for politicians who pass laws which favour well funded artificial meat producers. Though I suspect real meat would still be available at climate conferences and UN events, at least for important attendees.

Well why don’t we simply make food out of rocks and water, as Mother Gaia does, then we don’t need to murder either animals or plants. It’s all ust made out of about 92 elements anyhow so what is the hold up ??

@LdB – the “explanations” of the replicators are rather amusing. They were supposed to be energy into matter, until some annoying geek told them that the amount of energy for one “Earl Grey, hot” would vaporize the Enterprise (and probably trigger any nearby star into a supernova).

Okay, they explained it that it’s actually transporter tech – it takes the atoms from a store and reconstitutes them to the pattern with the transporter. Then some other annoying geek, slightly more sophisticated, pointed out that this requires completely lossless wireless transmission of energy to avoid vaporizing the Enterprise for your tea (but you do at least just a make a big boom, not destroy entire stellar systems).

At that point, I think they just threw up their hands and walked away, muttering “Don’t they understand that this is science fiction?”

They only thing that makes sense for both the transporters (which were only added when the costs of filming a starship making planetfall were estimated [originally, the USS Enterprise was going to land on the planet of the week]) and the replicator is that latinum, a mysterious and very valuable material because it cannot be replicated, is manipulated to form the matrix through which objects are materialised or dematerialised by 3D printer/scanners. For transporters, the latinum matrix focuses the ship’s tractor beams to scavenge and arrange matter to allow 3D printing at a distance. The scanning process is, of course, destructive but the resolution is good enough that not only are the fingerprints preserved, but all of the neural connections, as well. The computational power is sufficient that the individual can be completely scanned, before it can react to being disassembled. Likewise, the assembly is fast enough that no response by an incomplete subject is possible.

It is the potential abuse of the transporter that prevents the transporter from being a medical marvel. The same potential to use the transporter to remove cancer tumors allows a dictator to disperse demonstrations by transporting massive lumps of graphite into crowds, after disabling the sensors that that guide the matter scavenging.

Me I spent years working in a lab developing a sly taste for the contents of the petri dish, subsequently I discovered Marmite and have never looked back. Gone are the days of the quick, furtive, licking up of contents of the petri dish….life will just gets tastier now that Bovril rules.

You got to be kidding. The elite drives really expensive electric cars with backup diesels, 4 wheel drive in a flat town with no snow, and bicycle for posing and recreation, while the working class have to mothball their Fiat as they resort to commuting by a bus – train – bus connection that takes 90 in one direction, and costs more in terms of lost time and subsidy than the ticket price.

In terms of taxing, the most hated person in Europe is the one who works at low salary and uses a car. High taxes hit people who can barely live on their own. If you are unemployed and on wellfare monies, you don’t need to own a car to prove that you are willing to take a job. Also, if you’re highly paid, it doesn’t matter so much that driving is expensive. It hits those people who barely afford a car. Poor active people with needs to travel. That’s why we say the European system is passivating. You need to have a mental state to want to work on low salary, such like the Nepalese seem to have. I don’t know what keeps them trying, probably how they were raised at home.

The rest of us will have to eat “meatless meat” – meat flavoured mashed vegetables and lab grown tissue cultures.

Oh my Worrall. We’re not forced to eat tissue. And there is nothing wrong with veggies. If I’d complain on food I’d say we have too much food policing. People are so hot they almost start shooting meat eaters and butter users. I’ve come to conclusion there should be a weekly butter-pork day in school (the European style public school that is same for everyone) to improve acceptance of pork-eaters in the society.

Only the elite can get rid of people, so it is clear they don’t do that. The Kim’s Democracy of North Korea is the worst example of trying to. They managed to get rid of all wellbeing, but getting rid of people does not rid the elite. It is the les miserables elite, but elite in every case.

Just an observation of what I see ppl driving. Maybe it’s better than I thought, but your still are paying about $8/gal aren’t you? Does the avg worker have the extra money to afford gas, for that sort of car?

Why not? The cited venture is to culture animal cells. The cells provide the DNA & the challenge is to sustain enough cell cycles. I suppose the main issue is controlling RNA segues.

RNA factors would include assuring nucleolus (ribosome feature) assemble at late telophase to early G1 cell cyclee & it’s dissamble at mitosis. Then assuring enough creation of ribosomes to ramp up protein synthesis required for cell growth/proliferation. But if provoke too much ribosomal bio-genesis excessive protein in the cell endoplasmic reticulum can trigger it’s unfolded protein response leading to protein aggregates skewing cultured meat cell function.

We have about 4,500 proteins that associate with our nucleolus (with about 80 specific ribosomal proteins) yet 70% of these are not involved in the production of ribosomes; however they are related to cell cycles & genome stability. Of our ribosome RNA (rRNA) copies only about 1/2 are actively transcribing with about 1/2 rRNA silent; the silent rRNA stabilize the nucleolus.

Compounding the challenge culturing meat is that depending on the number of ribosomes per cell is that number affects which mRNA is getting copied. If a lot of mRNA with normally low affinity for being copied comes active that mRNA tends to code for cell cycle regulators & growth factors.

Although the option of cell growth & cycling sounds desirable that low transcription proclivity mRNA also codes onco-proteins (ex:human c-Myc). If our c-Myc level rises in a cell it provokes abnormally elevated number of cell centrosomes & unstabilizes the genome; making another problem for culturing meat.

Apparently there is a stoichiometry (relative ratios) of ribosomal proteins that impacts which different i

Indeed. GMO is breeding and nothing more than fancy breeding. Less sloppy, too. [NB that the same folk who freak out over chemicals are oblivious to the fact that everything material is a mixture of chemicals. They are also oblivious to the fact that viruses perform ‘natural’ genetic modifications in addition to the ‘natural’ internal genetic modifications due to chemical reactions.]

The funny thing about health nuts drinking Soy and almond milk is that those foods were never designed to be liquids so emulsifiers have to be added.to keep everything from separating. And the it has a very rough feel on the palate, so to make it feel more like milk fats they add gums. Of.course sugar and salt are added to top it off. The stuff is completely artificial. I.would think it is worse than anything GMO or BHP that I can think of.

There’s nothing artificial about soy milk if you make it yourself. Soy milk, salt, vanilla and sugar. I’ve made lots of it and it tastes as good or better than skim milk. The only reason I don’t make it now is because I have a serious cereal addiction, that can really pack on the pounds. With some things I just have to go cold turkey.

The smells and tastes associated with ….. butter-butter (butyric acid) for spreading and flavoring, …… “whole” cow milk for drinking and cooking ……. and bacon “fat” grease for frying and seasoning …….. are eating pleasures that many have been “brainwashed” into believing are really harmful to their health and well being.

Got no problem with people doing this by choice. Its the “eat this to save the planet” messaging which bugs me, along with the implied suggestion that once “acceptable” substitutes are available, the real thing will be removed from the shelves – to save the planet.

“Do less harm” is then open to someone’s ideal of just what is or isn’t “Harm”
You live how you think is proper and let me live how I think is proper.
I promise not to impinge on your rights to enjoy your Soylent Tofurkey,
Just don’t try to serve me a Turd Sandwich and call it Filet Mignon

[1]. . We live on an alluvial fan in a dry area (about 9 inches; 23 cm.). The area is rocky and not useful for row crops or most other agriculture products. Nearby are areas suitable of grass, so various sorts are grown for hay. Much of that is shipped over sea for dairy herds and other animals.
The local land not suitable for crops is used for cattle pasture, supplemented by the hay crop. If not used by cattle operations the land would grow thorn trees (Washington Hawthorn) and plants of the native sagebrush-steppe. Bird enthusiasts would be pleased as the small fruits are a winter food source. The state and county tax collectors would not be pleased.

[2]. . Replacing the beef may one day be possible. If I can’t tell the difference, I won’t care.
The byproducts of beef cattle might be more difficult to replace (at scale) and will have to be ramped up should beef production fall.
There is a list at this site: beef-byproducts

We drink almond milk as well, predominantly because my sister is lactose intolerant. We’ve used it in cooking, and I was surprised how well it worked out. I honestly didn’t think something designed to fake an animal product with a nut would work in something like stroganoff.

But I do keep a pint or two of the real thing, for with cookies. ^¿^

I’d be happy to try artificial meat. If it tastes as good, (or even passable) and didn’t cost a lot more, I’d be willing to start using it. But I can already see that the people pushing this are Greens, and Greens NEVER let you choose. They will do everything in their power to force this onto people, and will use it to force what they don’t like out of business. It’s SOP for them.

And let’s face it, most of the Greens will only embrace this to the point of useing it to force cattle ranching and other livestock out. They will still hate it, and refuse to purchase it themselves, and will force it out as soon as they no longer need it to justify their actions. The people who rail against Monsanto and protest Golden Rice are never going to allow this into wider production.

I would guess the restaurant added lemon juice or vinegar to milk and called it “buttermilk”. You can use lemon juice to curdle regular milk and substitute it in recipes for buttermilk, but it’s certainly not tasty for drinking.

Butter milk is the liquid that remains after all the components to make butter are taken out of the milk. It isn’t what most people think – it is not milk with lots of fat – it is milk with most fats and solids removed – much more so than skim milk. And yes it is suppose to taste sour.

We do both in my house. My wife as a moderate degree of lactose intolerance and so we use various nut “milks” plus whole milk. I mainly use the whole mile but we also make yogurt with it for our daily protein (whey) shakes.

And emulsifiers and gums and salt and sugar. Have you ever looked at the label? The gums are for the mouth feel the emulsification agents keep the almond part from se separating from the liquid. It is the fake concocted drink ever. May as well drink canned fruit punch.

The problem of milk not lasting long enough is due to the way it is treated in the USA. In Europe milk is pasteurized and kept in tetra bricks. Those can be stored for weeks at room temperature without going bad. At home we buy 36 liters in 1 liter bricks every two months or so, and they never get sour.

Once you open a brick, you have to store it in the frigde, though. Also, they are 1 liter each, not half gallon, that may help too.

The non dairy milk sales in the USA have probably benefited from lax consumer laws. Manufacturers are able to advertise health claims for their products which would be illegal in the UK and EU, because they are not supported by scientific testing. For instance Americans have been persuaded that Nutella is a healthy breakfast food, and juicing is super healthy, neither of which is true. Even so these milks have only 10% of the market, which is probably not much higher than the incidence of lactose intolerance. It is therefore hardly a good example for the take up of frankenmeat. Personally, I would rather go without meat than eat something produced in a lab. If meat is made expensive, I will relegate it to special treat status, and do without it the rest of the time.

I once worked at Monsanto Chemical Central Research labs, and our electronics lab was right next door to the cooking lab.

And these chemical engineer chefs, would brew up batches of cookies and such made out of 92 different elements and guaranteed to be totally devoid of any type of food value. None of this, and none of that, so you could eat all the cookies you wanted and have no ill effects whatsoever.

So every now and then they would bring over a still hot batch of these cardboard substitutes for us to try out to see if they tasted any good.

It seems that the idea of not eating when you are not hungry, is not in the best American traditions, so people have to stoke up on non-nutritive materials to keep their bellies from slapping up against their ribs.

Some of that faux stuff was quite tasty, so I don’t know how much of it is now on the market in expensive cardboard boxes that taste about the same as the non food inside them.

The odds of the franken-meat ever being cheaper than real meat are pretty low. Unless the makers deliberately undercut meat prices, allowing them to take over the market, and then jack up the price once the meat suppliers are out of business.

I am pro-GMO, but this is too out there for me. Better livestock management and usage worldwide would probably make a bigger difference.

One of the interesting people working on this is a trained cardiologist. He (Uma Valeti) was involved in using stem cells to repair damaged heart muscle. His thought went from heart tissue to beef tissue. Not such a big leap. He is a co-founder of Memphis Meats. I say “Good luck.” I suspect many problems will have to be solved that they haven’t encountered yet.
See my comment above at 10:50 pm. It is not just about meat as food.

I will be enjoying deer, buffalo, moose, salmon, trout, doll sheep, mountain goat, caribou and fresh organic vegetables from my garden. The rest of you can resign yourselves to chemistry experiments. Let me know how that goes!

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration an the National Institute For Health will approve this in 2040 to 2050.
For the evaluation of a basic, complex “food” removal, the removal has to be considered.
The science does not exist to determine what red meat does to each race or sex.

Just bought a sirloin tip roast for Christmas dinner (we did duck last year, but have no one coming). The more the AGW nutters buy soy milk and veggie burger, the less that sirloin tip roast will cost. Whats not to like?

Pan-seared duck breast is very close in flavor to beef. We raise ducks for butchering and find the meat quite good. I’ve only cooked a whole duck once. Generally, I bone out the breast meat and then cook it like steak.

I remember Samuel R. Delany writing about meat being cultured in factories in mass produced fashion for people to eat. I believe that was from Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, published in 1984. We are already culturing tissue in labs to create transplant organs. It’s only a matter of time before Delany’s prediction becomes real. I wouldn’t want to be an early investor, though.

There was a short story published in Analog some years back. The setting is a congressional committee hearing, where the witness is testifying on behalf of the artificial meat industry. Seems some upstart is sweeping the table with an incredible product that the public can’t get enough of. The story ends with the witness saying “I’m going to have to define some terms for you. The first one is spelled C_A_N_N_I_B_A_L…”

Yum ! — Frankenburgers … just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse than soy burgers. [I used to eat lots of soy, by the way, until I encountered the “oops, we were wrong about that” evidence against it.]

The most interesting aspect of this is the same people who want Joe Normal to use public transportation or remain close to home, tethered by a short range electric car, and who want meat to be too expensive for the average person, and who want air conditioning all but banned, are the same ones pushing socialism. If socialism worked as they claim it does, then we would all be equal and live the same.

But it doesn’t.

There’s always someone at the top living as Rockefeller or Gates or Streisand live in a capitalist society. The progressives (socialists) claim equality, yet the Castros, Stalins, Kims, and Chavezes lead lives of extravagance and power, which they publicly decry as decadence in capitalist states.

The big difference? In socialist states, they shoot you or send you to a gulag if you speak your mind. The second biggest difference is that most poor people in capitalist countries do not live at the edge of starvation, while in true socialist countries, the average person isn’t far from that same edge.

And don’t bother talking about Scandinavia or other European countries. They’re only partly socialized. Their core economies remain market driven.

And in this season, let’s not forget the caring words of an avowed Progressive, the editor of BuzzFeed: “All I Want For Christmas Is Full Communism Now“.

“For people who genuinely can’t afford meat at current prices, a cheap substitute which helped them and their children get the protein they require wouldn’t be a bad thing – though cutting red tape to help reduce the cost of real meat would likely achieve the same goal”

It’s hard to factory produce anything that matches the price of chicken and a number of pork cuts. Nor is hamburger expensive at $3 a pound.

Meanwhile, apples and much of the decent produce equal or exceed the cost of meat.

I can buy whatever is available at the farmer’s market; but their prices are set to be just below grocery stroe levels. What one gains from the farmer’s market is freshness; if one buys from the rare actual farmer.

Then again, I can buy a quarter steer or half a hog from a farmer butcher at rates far below grocery chain prices.

I do drink almond milk as late in life, my family’s lactose intolerance and casein allergies overcame any ability I had to tolerate milk. Otherwise, I’d still be drinking milk.

Nor do the many efforts to prepare various soy product meat imitations help.
Sadly, my body am also intolerant of legumes. Very sad, as I love well cooked beans and peas. Peanuts or soy beans in food have ruined many a day.

For a few dollars, a fishpole and a fishing license, one can catch panfish and catfish locally that are delectable.

I don’t know how farmer’s markets are run where you live, but where I live, farmer’s market prices exceed grocery store prices considerably, as if buying good nutritional food is rich person’s pursuit, or as if nutritionally educated consumers have higher incomes and can be gauged for the higher cost of good, healthy food.

That market is a classic example of the boutique markets the USDA pushed back in the 1970s with their “organic” labeling and product plan for small farmers. Yes, the whole “organic” movement was started by USDA as a method to aid small farmers to charge higher prices.

There are other imitation farmer markets that typically operate in or next to urban centers. Farmers, unless they’re desperate for cash, are very unlikely to drive far to run an urban located farm stand. Distance and time stuck in hot traffic seriously irritate farmers.

That said I know a couple who went into a farmstand career. They bought the stand lease and began operating the road side stand. Neither of them are farmers, gardeners or even green thumb folks. They are in it solely for the cash and buy/sell product solely for money. They do not care if the melons were picked when properly ripe or if the corn spent several days riding in the back of a pickup truck in hot weather.

Vote with your feet and wallet. Refuse to shop there.

My Father, and I take after him, would spot some stand operator’s sign that touts a product as some highly desired plant clonal name; e.g. Silver Queen sweet corn.
Irrespective, that silver queen is an older variety that has been far bypassed by modern sweeter corn varieties and is infrequently planted; sellers use the well known name as the lure to sell their unknown variety corn.

My Father will ask when was the corn planted?
Silver queen takes 92-110 days to grow and ripen.
With an early April plant date, (Virginia time); e.g. April 15th, means the corn can not be available before July 15th.
Late frosts are deadly to early planted corn, not that corn sprouts well when the soil is cold.
Silver queen corn safely planted after all threats of frost, e.g. May 1st; will not be available before the first week of August.

A more modern sweet corn variety can reach maturity in 77 days. That still leaves an April 15th planting not being ready before July 1st.

Local farmers will immediately tell customers whether they or a neighbor farmer grew the corn or that they got the corn from down south; and they’ll describe the shipping conditions too along with exactly when the corn was picked.
Farm stand shysters rarely tell the truth, even when cornered with their falsehoods. I’ve met a number who will insist they grew the corn when a mid-June shopping date eliminates local grown corn.

As a youngster, My Father grew corn and we sold it from our front porch in Pennsylvania.
When our stand of corn got too old, or rarely when we sold it all, we had a deal with a local farmer to sell his later plantings and split the profits.
Still, I and my Brothers had to get out and pick the corn before the sun got hot and then get it under cover and kept cool.
Day old corn got fed to the pigs.
Husking corn is never necessary to inspect corn ears. The corn silk and stem are the freshness indicators and wrapping one’s fingers around an ear lets one feel the kernel size and any cutworm gaps.
Dried stems indicate the ears were picked yesterday or older. Shriveled dry stems indicate days old corn, perhaps weeks.
Dried stiff corn silk means either overage corn (starchy) or that the corn was picked days ago.

Even today’s super sweet corn varieties start losing sweetness at the moment they’re picked. Heat and time affect the sweetness and flavor.

Few things equal local grown and plant ripened fruit, vegetables and produce. Beware of squeaky clean produce, as that usually means additional handlings.
Additional handlings bruise and damage ripe foods; which is a reason commercial growers pick early, while fruit and vegetables are still green and hard.

Bitter or wild almonds are toxic. Don’t think they can be had in the USA. There is not enough toxicity in US domestic almonds to notice. They are a seed, not a nut, nor a stone fruit pit such as apricots.

There are two basic almond flavorings available.
One is “bitter almond” which is harvested from those higher cyanide content almonds. As John F. Hultquist describes.

Almond macaroons, (the only macaroon in my mind) use bitter almond flavoring to accentuate the almond flavor. Excessive use of the bitter almond flavor is highly discouraged and definitely nor recommended.

Quite a few fruits have seeds containing cyanide. Basically the entire family of Rosaceae can have or do have cyanide or amygdalin which hydrolyzes into cyanide.
Rosaceae includes fruits like apples, pears, almond, peaches, quinces, cherries along with other plants; e.g. roses. Perhaps you’ve noticed how apple, peach, almond flowers resemble wild rose flowers?

It’s takes a large quantity of apple pips or even peach pits to reach dangerous levels of cyanide. Bitter almonds are much more deadly.

Of course, the word “milk” combined with the word “soy” is a misnomer. The idea, I suppose, is to help people trick their minds into thinking that they are drinking a different kind of “milk” that is really juice or cold broth or sludge or whatever you might want to call the watery brew.

Soy milk is made by grinding soaked soybeans, boiling them in water and then separating the solids. The liquid is soy milk.

Soy juice is “a name for soy milk given by comedian Lewis Black after seeing it in a grocery store. He named it after stating “theres no such thing as soy milk, because theres no soy titty, is there?””

The folks who buy this will be the same progressives that only buy “organic” foods to avoid “chemicals” and “artificial” components, blissfully unaware that it’s worse for the environment than conventional agriculture:

And “Certified Organic” does NOT mean free of artificial chemicals. Those certified growers are still allowed to use artificial chemicals; but just the chemicals the food police like. And I can’t buy the argument that the dung of non human animals is good to put on food crops.

Actually, if/when it is available, cheap, and can be made palatable, it’s what’ll be used in fast food. OK by me. I rarely eat fast food, but it’s not a religious issue with me. If the only food in sight is a Wendys or McDonalds, I’ll happily eat there. They use too much salt, but otherwise their food seems OK to me.

err no-one “farms roos 😉 theyre wild the meat on sale is from wild shot ones.
in Victoria over run with roos youre not even allowed to use the damned meat!
looks like that may change for petfood use
only a few decades behind the times SA has been providing pet and human consumption meat from wild roos for decades, yummy steaks cooks well,but you do need to be aware of tapeworm issues and never serve it rare

What these “meat” cell growers need and want government to impose is highly restrictive government regulations against large scale animal operations like feed lots and abattoirs because animals emit methane (farts and belches, but mostly in belches for ruminants). And methane of course is “carbon pollution” in the climate religion fanatics view. To make this venture profitable, they need the coercive power of government to kill off their cheaper, better competition from live animals and the processing of those animals to grocery store meats.

one further note.
Most, if not all, of these “meat from tissue culture” advocates are from that same cultural mindset class that see late-term abortions as simply the removal of some extraneous tissue from the female body, as if it were a wart or tumor.

Joel is correct what gets argued next is the ban on real meat because of animal cruelty and CO2 emissions.Like most of the econutt things they aren’t willing to play on a level field they want to legalize only one option and erode your rights in the meantime.

During the drought we were hammered with “each almond represents 1 gallon of water!” so poof almond milk should have disappeared ,from an Enviro point of view. A beautiful 6 oz filet will be what, an acre of production of both field and factory?

Anyone who has done sterile lab tissue culture (TC) knows the issues here. And there are many.

– The first is keeping cultures sterile during growth. Not a trivial task, but doable… with antibiotics.
– Tissue-culture grown muscle-fiber cells (myocytes, chondrocytes) are grown with a media concoction known as media+serum+amino acids+antibiotics.

Commercial media are simply phosphate-buffered saline solution with various sugars and a pH dye indicator (usually phenol red). Those are all non-animal derived. Common antibiotics like pennicillin and streptomycin are non-animal biologic origin, but they can be heat sterilized. But the other additives are not. Serum and essential amino acids come from animals.

By far the most commonly used serum is derived from fetal calf blood. It is a semi-clear to brownish colloidal liquid remaining after centrifuge spinning-down all the cells from the blood. Essentially it is the blood plasma with a few more treatments. Those additional procedures are used to remove antibodies and it is then slightly heated just enough to inactivate complement proteins (heat denaturation of protein structure). Other sources of serum can be used like horse, goat, even human. The biggest threat in animal-origin serum is the presence of virus particles too small to filter out. Some synthetic serum concoctions have been developed, but it is a poor substitute for animal-derived serum. No one really knows all what is in fetal calf serum. We know it contains lectins (protein-binding long-branched sugars) and inactivated proteins.

And then there are the antibiotics that must be added to culture media as the cells grow to inhibit bacterial growth/contamination. Without antibiotics, TC just won’t work past a few rounds of passing cells through culture.

Now I suppose these tissue “meat” cultures are being grown with some kind of synthetic serum to avoid the biohazard of viruses. But the essential amino acids are usually animal derived.

The bottom line is cell culture grown “meat” will be analogous to the coal-powered Tesla. If one traces backwards to all the products it takes to make it, you might as well just keep cows and feed them grass and water. Much easier. Much tastier.

A juicy beef steak or cut of lamb have their taste we crave because of the presence of blood. How hot one prepares the meat of course we call rare, medium, well-done, and variations in between. With TC-derived “meat” one probably gets a something that looks like a tofu-burger. And tastes about the same.

The other issue with TC is that it literally uses mountainous piles of plastics to growth the cells in. The plastic TC containers are usually polycarbonate plastic with a vapor-coating (for cell adherence). The plastic can be recycled after it is used, but then that’s more energy. But polycarbonate plastic is not as easily recycled as polyethylenes, And the original plastic comes from petroleum.

Since bacteria and molds are a constant problem, they could just as well grow the right strains of bacteria or mold from a petrol-based or grain-based substrate and harvest them to make their d..mned steak. That’s where a lot of industrial food ingredients already come from (citric acid, Maggi sauce, glutamate…)

I believe the main problem may be cell oxygenation and nutrient transport. You can grow a layer of epidermal cells over a petri dish easily. But if you want to grow a slice of meat, you need to provide all the cells with nutrients and oxygen, and remove all the garbage the cells produce, CO2 included. That is what the circulatory system is for.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to argue that grass fed beef is not environmentally sound. Grown in pastures that are too rocky to farm, or have to unfertile soil, it utilizes non-croppable land, has lower fat and better fatty acid profiles than conventional beef, lamb, mutton, or pork. It will be way better for you than any factory grown meat. I think the FDA would require long term replacement trials for vat grown meat, similar to drug trials but maybe lasting 3-4 generations to ensure wholesomeness before allowing it to mass market.

The primary source of vitamin B-12 is animal tissue, eggs, and milk, very little in plants. Most of the B-12 in a vegan diet comes from the insect contamination in most flour, especially organic flour or else B-12 supplements derived from meat or chemically sythesized vitamins. You could also try grasshoppers or crickets.

The UK noted some decades ago that strict vegan Hindu-men in the UK were having vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency issues aka beri-beri. But these traditional vegan Hindus were following the same diets they had used in their native India where beri-beri was not common.

What the investigation revealed was that Indian-origin white rice was highly contaminated with insects and insect parts, which of course was consumed along with the rice and thus they got their Vitamin B1. But in the UK, polished white rice was free of insect contamination. So these Hindu vegans were now getting beri-beri in a Western country with high food safety standards.

If you’re not familiar with the hype, just google the history of the Segway. All the same types of people were saying all the same types of things. It was the event that finally cured me of my own technology-as-savior mentality.

One of the most wrong- headed of the several mistaken notions within the Silicon Valley proposal is that properly managed cattle grazing is a net Carbon sequestration process. Properly managed grazing creates more productive, fertile soils.
Consider the most productive and fertile soils of North America. They are all found where vast herds of grazing Bovidae have played their part in building that soil, for eons.

“I want to be able to say you don’t have to make a choice in what you’re eating,” Memphis CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti says, “but you can make a choice on the process of how it goes to the table.”

What does that sentence even mean??? The second clause makes sense on its own, but the full sentence is nonsensical. I would not invest 17 cents in a company headed by someone who is that inarticulate.

People who invest in these schemes should have to pledge to only consume such products. No more real meat for Branson or Gates. I doubt either would/will actually consume the franken-meat behind closed doors anyway.

To me the biggest lie in all this anti animal flesh argument is that plant based food is better for the planet. Growing plants, in the modern, high yield setting requires large energy inputs in the form of artificial fertiliser (from oil), pesticide and herbicide (from oil), energy for production (from oil), transport (from oil) and post processing (from electrical sources), packaging (from oil), transport to the point of sale (from oil), consumer collection (from oil), cooking (from lets say electrical sources) and then disposal of said packing to recycling or land fill (from oil and/or electrical). In order for this to be viable government subsidy is required otherwise it’s not viable, same as renewables, its taking money from the masses and putting it into the pockets of the new tech elites. Most intensively farmed land is essentially dead hence the need for inputs to get the yield required. A wheat crop here in the UK requires 8 to 12 treatments during the season to get the yield and quality needed. This is not sustainable. Mixed farming i.e. animals and arable is; since the energy input requirements would be dramatically reduced and the land would be in ‘good heart’ as they used to say, ergo requiring less energy input.. Locally produced meat and vegetables require much less transport, packaging and all of the attendant overhead and marketing needed for mass distribution in the form of the omnipresent ‘supermarkets’. I’m not a Greenie at all but at times common sense needs to be bought to bear. The people developing these products see a market and the same ridiculous amounts of investment that have dominated the ‘tech’ markets which will enable them to trouser $$$$, the rest of the spin about the planet etc is utter BS.

” Most intensively farmed land is essentially dead hence the need for inputs to get the yield required.”

Maybe you are not a Greenie but you are repeating the greenies’ nonsense.
No, intensive farmland is not dead, neither “essentially” dead (whatever that means), nor any such things. Intensive farmlands are thriving and produce more and more each years. If they have less input, they will have less yield (but still more than “organic”), that’s all that’ll happens, but they are NOT dead.
It’s sad that you need to be explained such no brainer.

I don’t think you understood the premise of my reply i e that if we all become vegans all will be well according to the so- called eco warriors (not my view). My point being that mono cropping is not without its impact on resources, nor is it anymore ‘sustainable’ (I hate that word) than mixed farming or raising livestock, something that green vegan advocates don’t seem to grasp, rather like ignoring the fact that fabricating wind turbines has no carbon footprint. Intensive farmlands ‘thrive’ precisely because of the artificial fertiliser, pest treatment and plant breeding I listed- I live next to a large intensive farm, I see it year in year out and the number of fertiliser treatments is rising. The real growing condition of the soil is not important in this system of production since it’s condition can be modified as discussed above and it is just a medium for propagation. Over time the soil loses its structure and this can be a problem. I’m entitled to use any sentence modifiers as I see fit.

This will enable space travel, exploring worlds anywhere any time. All you need in energy and not hectares per person to grow stuff. Growing food is really the thing that prevents us from being a multi planet / star civilization. It’s really important to spend Billions on it, not millions. The advantage is massive, the upside incredible.

Not that fussed. Endless hectares of open country in Australia, filled with Kangaroo, and Rabbits. Both good good if you’ve got an otherwise balanced diet. That reminds me, must put the ‘roo on to marinate tonight! Yum yum.

(Roo and rabbit are practically free here if you can make your own ammunition)

The meat-is-expensive clap trap is utterly bogus and hypocritical. Natural meat can grow by itself and cost nothing so on most farmlands, especially in the USA where land is plentiful, meat is as “free and plentiful” as the two green fads of the time: solar and wind.
What makes nearly all the costs at the shelves is the decades of regulations and law, and restrictions and requirement and standards etc imposed by bureaucrats.

“What makes nearly all the costs at the shelves” is you have to gather, transport, butcher, check, cut in pieces small enough to be cooked, etc. Farmers are always surprised at the prices difference between the animal they sell <1$/kg and the meat people buy. They have no idea of the amount of work required

So, we have “renewable” meat, grown for “free” out of grass, water, and sun. And you want to turn away from it, just when we have this movement toward “renewable” energy.
Well, why not…
This won’t save on meat cost, which is actually pretty cheap (just ask a farmer how much, or, rather, how few, he sells his animals)
It may save on butchering and some transport, although I am not that sure.
May be some mad pro renewable energy disbrained will be ready to pay for non renewable, chemical meat ersatz. or not.

Naturally occurring greenhouse gasses outnumber Man-made (eligible for reduction by policy) by over 1,000,000 to one, so that Man-made portion is insignificant by MANY orders of magnitude. But the scammers keep scamming!

Some of the meat replacements are pretty good. I was off meat for a while because of gout issues. Once it cleared up I started working meat back in, but there are still some things I buy just because they were good and cost effective. The new Beyond Meat Ultimate Burgers are an pretty good as well, but until they get the cost down, I’m not interested. If you’re going to pawn a meat replacement, it has be priced for the masses.

If the issue is greenhouse gasses, would it simply not be easier to develop a way to capture the gasses produced and use them in energy production? The production of those carbon gasses came from the consumption of carbon. If it is not a net zero sum, it’s close to it. Granted one is sequestered in plants and the other is free in the air. Capture the carbon at the gaseous end of the cycle, use it for energy and we’re good.

Mention “Global Warming” and Gates and Zuck and all the rest of the billionaire groupies run like little girls to Justin Beiber’s hotel room. The term Global Warming is an old timey term for Climate Change, which is a secret synonym for Wealth Transfer, which translates to Progressive Political Power.

Well, theoretically, with some warming there will be more farmland and grazing land available longer through the year, so we should be able to increase the amount of livestock available for eating. Unless of course they are taxing the s**t out of it which makes no sense. Let’s see, warming helps feed the world, but we don’t want that so we we are going to make it too difficult to grow and raise food. Liberal logic.

I suggest that animal welfare issues have a lot more to do with why people choose not to eat meat than any desire to ‘save the planet’.
The Guardian newspaper (UK) in August 2016 reported as follows:
There were more than 4,000 severe breaches of animal welfare regulations over the past two years at British slaughterhouses, according to data released by the government’s food watchdog under freedom of information laws.
The data, comprising reports by vets and hygiene inspectors, details instances of needless pain and distress that include chickens being boiled alive and trucks of animals suffocating or freezing to death.
The log of reports submitted to the Food Standards Agency (FSA) reveals how regular breakdowns on production lines, equipment failures and poor procedures in abattoirs result in thousands of animals being subjected to avoidable suffering each year. Many individual acts of cruelty and neglect by slaughterhouse staff, hauliers and farmers are also documented, alongside malpractice that increases the risk of food poisoning.
The FSA said however that “only a tiny percentage” of animals that pass through Britain’s slaughterhouses are affected, adding that “the vast majority of meat processors comply with regulations”.
Meat inspectors and campaigners argue that there is an under-reporting of welfare abuses, blaming insufficient staff and the often intimidating working conditions at abattoirs.
Vets and meat hygiene inspectors working for the FSA inside abattoirs reported a total of 9,511 animal welfare breaches between July 2014 and June 2016, with records classified into three categories according to severity. Category 2 refers to a low-risk isolated incident, while category 4, the most serious, means animals were subjected to “avoidable pain, distress or suffering”.
Analysis reveals almost half the recorded incidents were category 4 breaches – a total of 4,455, or an average of six a day. A single breach can involve hundreds of animals. Between April 2011 and July 2014 there were 6,859 reported incidents in all categories.
Failures in the slaughter process were also highlighted, with thousands of instances of animals not being stunned properly and in some cases not stunned at all. Inspectors recorded cases of chickens and pigs being immersed in tanks of scalding hot water – used to soften the skin and remove hair or feathers – while still alive.
Almost 600 instances were recorded of animals arriving at slaughterhouses already dead. In one case 574 chickens, from a load of 6,072 birds, died after being left on a lorry in very hot conditions. This counts as one welfare breach despite involving hundreds of birds.
The data also highlights practices that could facilitate the spread of the bacteria campylobacter, the most common cause of food poisoning in the UK. About four in five cases of the infection, which kills about 100 people a year, come from contaminated poultry.
Ensuring birds are as calm as possible when they are being caught and transported is an important preventative measure, because stressed birds defecate more, potentially spreading the infection and increasing the risk of meat contamination. However, the data includes regular instances of chickens being “overstocked” in crates and incidents of birds being left in lorries for lengthy periods of time. In one case, because of a breakdown at the plant, 14 trucks were left overnight for more than 12 hours; in another, birds were left in crates at the abattoir for 20 hours.
The British Meat Processors Association, the industry trade body, declined to comment on the findings.
More than 900 million farm animals are killed for food each year in Britain. There are 317 approved slaughterhouses across the UK, most run by a handful of large companies that dominate the meat processing sector.
Between June 2014 and July 2016, the spokesperson said, all category 4 breaches resulted in enforcement action. In2013 an d 2014 the FSA referred 14 breaches of welfare regulations to the CPS, of which four resulted in prosecutions. Three of those prosecutions were later dropped.
Of the remaining cases, four resulted in warning letters. Over the course of the two years, two slaughterers’ licences were suspended and three were revoked for failure to comply with welfare legislation.
The fact that serious welfare breaches were the exception not the norm was not the point, said Marc Cooper, head of farm animals at the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals).
“Such incidences of severe pain, distress and suffering are wholly unacceptable and completely avoidable,” he said. “If they’re avoidable, that means they shouldn’t be happening at all – you shouldn’t be seeing one. You would hope that strong enforcement action would be taken.”
Halal and schechita are methods of slaughter allowed on religious grounds. A sanitised website description of shechita describes what happens:
“Shechita is performed by a highly trained shochet. The procedure consists of a rapid and expert transverse incision with an instrument of surgical sharpness (a chalaf), which severs the major structures and vessels at the neck. This causes an instant drop in blood pressure in the brain and immediately results in the irreversible cessation of consciousness. Thus, shechita renders the animal insensible to pain, dispatches and exanguinates in a swift action, and fulfils all the requirements of humaneness and compassion.”
A scientific examination of the process clearly demonstrates that this is not the case, as research at the University of Bristol (UK) found in 1992. In addition to the carotid arteries, extra ones run through the neck bones to supply blood to the brain. These are not cut during religious slaughter. Blood flow increases over four-fold in these arteries during religious slaughter, and brain activity can persist in a calf for over one and a half minutes after its throat has been cut. It has also been shown that most sheep can take almost half a minute to lose brain responsiveness.
In the words of an article I read written by a vet: “The only humane method of slaughtering an animal is to render it unconscious by electrical or mechanical stunning, followed by immediate bleeding out. Inflicting a fatal wound on a conscious animal that may choke on its own blood for half a minute is cruel.”
I once had a conversation with a slaughterman who’d been accidentally stunned by the electrical equipment at the abbatoir where he worked. He described how ‘everything turned blue’, and how he’d been revived in a nearby room. Clearly proper stunning is effective.
I understand that pre-stunning is becoming a matter of discussion among member of the Muslim faith, and is now allowable. Halal meat which has been produced from animals thus slaughtered is available.
Important farm animal welfare issues have been hugely neglected within the EU. Environment Secretary Michael Gove, in his 2017 Conservative Party conference speech, opined that outside the Union’s single market, we can introduce more humane methods of farming, including the restriction of live export of animals. The RSPCA tells us that every year millions of calves, pigs, horses, goats, sheep and chickens are transported all over Europe for further fattening and slaughter, the journey often taking days. Not surprisingly, many suffer from stress, exhaustion, thirst and rough handling. Animals are loaded onto trucks, and are often on the road for many hours before being crammed onto a ferry, some as young as two weeks old being forced to endure this gruelling journey before meeting their fate across the Channel in conditions illegal in Britain. Effective enforcement of live transport laws has over the years been lacking in many EU member states. Checks carried out by the European Commission’s own inspection body, the Food and Veterinary Office, as well as livestock journeys followed by RSPCA staff, have shown that the authorities in a number of countries are failing to enforce the rules effectively, leading to unnecessary suffering. Let us hope that with Brexit this inexcusable and ugly aspect of EU membership will soon be in the past, as the UK will no longer be bound by its rules.
Hopefully this has clarified why some people become vegetarians!

As a Ruminant Nutritionist and Dairy Farmer, You should know a few things about animal agriculture.

First is that Animal agriculture, particularly Cattle are the biggest recyclers in the US. The majority of feed I feed to my cattle is waste from another industry. Examples include: Distillers Grains and Distillation Syrup from distilling liquor, and making ethanol. Distillers Grains, Barley Screenings, Malt Sprouts and Reject Barley from Beer Brewing. Cotton Seed and Gin Trash left over from cotton production. Cotton Seed Meal, Soy Bean Meal, Canola Meal, Safflower Meal, Linseed Meal, Palm Kernel Meal and Copra Meal from various oil production processes. Corn Gluten Meal, Corn Germ Meal and Hominy are left over in making High Fructose Corn Syrup and other milled corn products. Beet Pulp and Molasses produced from sugar production. Wheat Millrun/Mids/Shorts, Wheat Bran, Wheat Screenings, Rejected Wheat Flour and Wheat Grain, and Straw from the production of Flour. Rice bran, Rice Flour and Rejected Rice. We also feed Fat that is a byproduct of cosmetic production, Acid Whey from making cheese, and Feather Meal from poultry producers. Rejected Human Food is recycled by animals; I’ve seen Ramen, Doritos, Fruit-loops, Bread, Twinkies, Cheetos, Chocolate and Candy feed to animals (and they love it by the way…). Tomato Pulp from Ketchup, Carrot Pulp from making those little baby carrots. Grape Pumice, Apple Pumice, Citrus Pulp, from Juice and Wine Making. Rejected Potatoes, Potato Waste, Potato Pulp, Rejected French Fries from various potato products. Rejected Fruit and Vegetables, and Almond Hulls help make California the largest dairy state in the United States. Fact is these products would end up in landfills if they weren’t fed to animals. All of these things are high quality feeds.

The second thing that is important to note is the Amino Acid composition of plants is very poor. The stomach of Ruminants (Cattle, Sheep, ect.) is made of 4 compartments. The largest Compartment the Rumen is a fermentation chamber where bacteria grow on the animals feed. The Bacteria grown in the Rumen comprise fully 75% of the amino acids digested by cattle and have the amino acid composition similar to steak. This means that Ruminants can thrive on low quality protein that makes humans like North Koreans skin and bones.

Creating lab grown meat and milk while possible, will be environmentally unfriendly and require production of large amounts of High Quality Plant, Algae, Bacteria, or Yeast Protein refining these proteins to amino acids and sterilizing them to feed the sterile cell cultures. While it is possible, the God of Nature has given us the gift of Animals to do the Recycling and feed us High Quality Food.

As a side my Business is nonstop, smelly, messy and sometimes dangerous. I do it because I love dairy. I know milk and meat is the highest quality food we can make, and we do it at low cost to the consumer. When Feed is all processed by the cow our manure is recycled in a digester to produce electricity and what remains is turned into compost. We strive for scientific Improvement and making more milk with less resources to the benefit of humanity.

This is the usual ignorant self-blaming measure against global warming, carbon dioxide production, etc. The Third World countries are just as responsible for global warming as we are. Recent studies have shown that they are raising far more animals for meat than they did a few years ago. Eighty percent of the people in the world live in third world countries. They are likely to use open fires to cook and heat their homes and they continually engage in deforestation for fuel. They are not likely to have emission controls on their cars, etc. etc. Thousands of people in third world countries die of smoke inhalation or asphyxiation every year from household fires, just to give you an idea of how much they contribute to atmospheric carbon and global warming.

But just eat your fake meat and trade your Cadillac in for a Tesla, because global warming is a First World problem, right? I’m not saying that doing something, however small, can’t help, but we’ve got to get over the idea that we created global warming all by ourselves, and it’s up to us to fix it. Sure, it might make you feel good to eat your soy. If so, you are not reasoning but having an emotional reaction. The same emotional reaction is responsible for the idea that it is you-know-what if we try to place any of the blame for global warming on people in third-world countries.

What a bunch of crapola. Meat won’t be going anywhere at least for the next 7 years. We have a real leader in the whitehouse who can recognize a scam and put a stop to the greenie environmental wacko garbage that the previous clueless president put into effect.

Soylent green and the “population Bomb” were put out when llefties were pushing for universal abortion.. Then they switched to “NUCLEAR WINTER” to stop the modernization of the US Nuclear arsenal. Then global warming. THIS ALL IGNORES THE FACT THAT THE NATURAL CARBON CYCLE DWARFS HUMAN CAUSES BY A MILLION FOLD.
All just more propaganda to achieve leftie dictatorship.

A perfect tasting burger every time that is cheaper, uses 80% less energy / water, and no cow has to die?
Where do I sign up?!
(just as long as a burger still taste like a burger… I am after all a carnivore first and liberal second)

A fitting food for a brave new world as envisioned by our cyber-overlords…

Nutraloaf (also known as Meal Loaf, prison loaf, disciplinary loaf, food loaf, lockup loaf, confinement loaf, seg loaf, grue or special management meal) is a food served in prisons in the United States and Canada[citation needed] to inmates who have misbehaved; for example, assaulting prison guards or fellow prisoners. It is similar to meatloaf in texture, but has a wider variety of ingredients. Prison loaf is usually bland, perhaps even unpleasant, but prison wardens argue that nutraloaf provides enough nutrition to keep prisoners healthy without requiring utensils to be issued.

Leave my meat alone. And not the meat in my pants. I don’t want frankenmeat made from veggies and other crap. If you choose not to eat meat and live a vegan lifestyle that’s great. Don’t push it on me and don’t try to redefine what meat really is. It comes from animals and always will. And still claiming that animals contribute to global warming (climate change) is a load of crap. If farmed animals produce such a large amount of greenhouse gas then how much does the typical human make? Maybe we can do away with humans.

Just a thought, here in the UK (we are only a relatively small island), if everyone were to go vegetarian/vegan we simply would not have enough arable land to grow crops to feed them all
without having to tear up hedgerows therefore destroying natural habitats, ergo far less insects and other predators that feed on them to keep our environment stable.

“The real question is, are they feeding people or are they feeding egos.” I’ll take Door #2, Alex. This is all about feeding egos, always has been. If you can’t wave your degree(s) at them, you’re one of those rolling around in the mud while they’re up there above it all.

I did try soy burgers a while back. Not impressed. Can’t cook them past a specific point, because they burn far too easily. And let’s see those soylent-know-it-alls eat that crap first. The issue isn’t the flavor, it’s the texture. Meat isn’t mush unless it’s made that way.

I’m waiting for the cities to have walls built around them, like some medieval ducal state in the Dark Ages. Let THEM eat soy! They really are nuts.

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